Insanity Is
by binkeybella
Summary: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. What happens when Tony suddenly decides to do something different? Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

It had come over him all of a sudden, some overwhelming wave triggered by a simple order from Gibbs. Only, it hadn't been that simple – that order was meant for him, yet Gibbs had given the task to McGee and Bishop. After chasing leads all afternoon on the phone, and wracking his brain for some sort of clue to the crazy embezzling/drug smuggling case, Tony had had an 'ah ha' moment, and it all fell into place for him.

He'd shouted out in triumph, startling his co-workers, and proudly announced his findings. Gibbs had merely grunted, looked up over his monitor, and directed his two junior team members to follow up on the lead and bring the person of interest in for questioning. Two surprised agents gave Tony apologetic looks, but kept their opinions of their boss's decision to themselves.

Tony, however, did not. As soon as his team mates were ensconced in the elevator, he'd called the man on it. And gotten a stony look, along with an equally flinty answer back. Tony could have followed along verbatim to the response if he'd been inclined for such antics anymore. Which he wasn't, especially now.

"My team. I give the orders, you follow them. Simple as that, unless you've got some other employment lined up."

Huh. Well now. Either Gibbs was baiting him, or he was completely self-assured (and completely mistaken) that Tony would take the high road once again and live with the oft-quoted edict. There was a time Tony did consider it taking the high road - being the grown up and letting Gibbs have his moment of power over him.

"Well, seeing as how you put it _that_ way -" Tony gave back in a voice that masked his present fury.

To Gibbs, that was the appeasement he was looking for. It was all Tony needed for the moment, until the day was over and he could deal with the situation properly. He carried on quietly, letting his boss think he'd gotten yet one more carrot and stick trick out of his second. But in his head, Tony was composing a letter, and giving thought to where his new horizons lie.

Not long after, McGee and Bishop arrived with what they now considered a suspect; he had made a run for it, and McGee had had to give chase. In cuffs now, the man was taken to be questioned, and in a matter of twenty minutes of Gibbs interrogating him, had signed not only a full confession, but turned on his fellow sailors. It seemed that traveling port to port in exotic locales was just too much temptation not to dabble in some easy drug money, which soon turned into something bigger than any of the criminals had bargained for. He was glad to be done with it, and not have to be looking over his shoulder every minute of the day.

Something that Tony could totally relate to, though he had heard the story second-hand as he'd not been invited to watch the interrogation himself. Chalk another one up to the Mighty Gibbs and his OCD tendencies.

Though his teammates quietly tried to boost his spirits regarding the whole situation, Tony shrugged it off as casually as he could, appreciating their words, but wanting only to get home and get his life back in order. Orange walls were certainly no place to contemplate career moves, or if he even wanted to have a career at all. He'd been sitting on a trust fund since he was eighteen, chunking off some of the interest for splurges to reward himself for goals accomplished, or sometimes just to keep his sanity.

He had a decent retirement account set up besides, and contrary to what he made his team believe, he was pretty frugal with his paycheck, having set up a real budget when he'd landed a federal agent's salary, and pretty much sticking to it. Yes, if there was at least one definite thing to be said about Tony DiNozzo, it was his stick-to-it-tiveness. It's what had kept him at NCIS for over thirteen years, a good eight or nine years longer than he really should have hung around. Water over the dam now, but still, there were decisions to be made to remedy the present situation. His letter of resignation was succinct and polite, asking for nothing from the agency in the way of references or letters of recommendation. He highly doubted that Vance could bring himself to write anything that sounded enticing to a perspective employer, and as for Gibbs, well, he wasn't about to ask him for his next breath. Been there, done that. Had the scarred lungs to prove it.

He would stand on his own should he decide to pursue further employment. Or he would stand on his own on the beach in front of a cottage by the ocean. Either way, it was time, _had_ been time for longer than Tony was willing to admit, and his supposed 'comfort zone' days on Gibbs' team were going to be over as soon as he could manage it. He sent the email to Vance, made two hard-copies of it, and sealed one in an envelope which he simply scribbled Gibbs on the front, then filed the other with his work documents. There was no 'resigner's' regret that followed, and no fear of repercussions for doing himself the favor of putting himself out of his numbed misery.

In fact, he poured himself a glass of his best booze and set about making a pan of home made lasagna, occupying his evening quite pleasantly. Ir felt good to be free. He should have done it years ago.

 _ **NCIS**_

The next morning, Gibbs was missing from his desk when Tony arrived. Not that unusual, except for the fact that McGee was giving him strange looks, bordering on poisonous, if Tony got right down to it. There was no way McGee would have known already; there was a policy against anyone, even the Director, discussing an employee's work status with anyone else, inside or outside the agency. The exception, of course, was in the line of investigation of a crime, which Tony was pretty sure he hadn't been personally involved in recently.

"What's the word, McGrumpy? Gibbs eat your sprinkle donut?"

"Gibbs is pissed, and I mean like, beyond furious pissed, and he said your name right before he took off to the Director's office! I swear, Tony, I'm gonna make you eat your Ferragamos if you've made him miserable to us the rest of the day!"

"Really! I'd like to see you try that, McGee!" Tony answered back, his voice light but lacking its usual teasing. As far as Tim had come in the art of self defense, he was no match for his senior partner in any given situation, much less one where Tony was itching to knock the angry, accusing look off McGee's face.

The lack of nickname and challenging tone got McGee's attention quick time. Looking over at Tony, the younger agent found himself eyeballing a face he rarely saw– Serious DiNozzo. A DiNozzo who wasn't in the mood, for whatever reason, for him to be making idle threats. He swallowed and turned back to his keyboard, unconsciously visualizing the pounding he would get from _that_ version of Tony.

"Just telling you he's on the warpath, and it has your name on it."

"Usually does anymore." Tony muttered to himself, then even more quietly, added 'McGolden Boy' to it. He didn't care that Gibbs was furious with him, it was hardly anything new, and there was nothing the man could do to him now in the way of threats and ultimatums. Tony's mind was set, and he didn't even care if no one there asked him to change it. If they had, it would have been too little, too late.

The jangling phone brought Tony out of his thoughts, and he listened to the Director's assistant request his presence in the man's office. So it begins, Tony smiled sadly. A terse meeting with Vance who would no doubt toss out some obligatory 'we're going to miss you here' phrases then politely dismiss him with a huge sigh of relief as the door closed on the pain in the ass agent's ass. _So be it. Get it over_ _with, and get on with your life._

He headed upstairs, only to be passed by a cold-shouldered Gibbs on his way back down to the bullpen.

No surprise there. Much as Tony was certain that Gibbs wanted him gone, he was also certain that Gibbs would have wanted to be the one to give him the boot, not Tony up and quitting on him like a pansy. There was no drama in accepting a resignation letter, no control by fear and intimidation by firing the guy himself. He'd stolen Gibbs' thunder, which never went over well with the man.

Putting thoughts of his soon to be ex-boss out of his head for the time being, he slipped into the reception area, giving Cynthia a wink and a smile as she alerted Vance to Tony's presence. Vance directed her to have the agent take a seat, which Tony knew was Vance's idea of control, or one of them, anyways. No doubt the man was gazing out the window, toothpick rolling between his teeth, as he wasted government money making Tony cool his heels outside the 'big' office.

Tony knew the game and how to play it, and took the free time to contemplate some of the places he'd like to go when he was no longer riding a desk. And he could truly call it that, as Gibbs had all but verbally benched him so much of the time the past few years. He spent more time pushing paper now than he did out in the field. One more reason to move on. Let's see. St. Croix. He hadn't ever been there. Turks and Caicos. Hell, he'd settle for Key West right now. Nearly twenty minutes and several exotic locations later, he was torn from his thoughts by Vance's booming voice.

"DiNozzo! In my office! Now!"

Wowsers. Had he really been daydreaming on company time?

He jumped to attention and followed the man, waiting for the invitation to sit, which didn't come. So he stood, unsurprised at the attitude.

"Got your email last night. I have to admit it was a bit of a surprise. Figured you'd take the easy route and retire from here."

He couldn't help it, it came out of his mouth before he could stop his brain.

" _Easy_ route, Director? I wasn't aware that working for Gibbs for fourteen years was taking the easy route, but I guess it's all in the interpretation."

Vance ignored his impertinence and continued on.

"Easy as in knowing your boss and what's expected of you on a daily basis. No surprises, just steady on with the gunny."

"Begging your pardon, Director, but there's not been a whole lot expected of me in quite a while. Been a bit of a fifth wheel, really. I think my job was done here about, oh five years ago, maybe more, I just didn't have the brains to know any better."

Vance twitched his toothpick with a grunt and sat down, still not inviting Tony to do the same.

"You got big plans after NCIS?"

"Uh..well, I've got some plans, don't know if they're big or not."

"Not young anymore, DiNozzo. Not a lot of tech skills, either, at least compared to the new kids coming up. Just don't want you to be surprised if you hit a lot of brick walls in your job search."

 _Ohhh so many responses to that loaded statement. But also none of his god damned business._

"Well, it _is_ true that I'm not a spring chicken anymore, Director. But, youth isn't all it's cracked up to be, now is it? I've done my share of dumpster diving for evidence and fence jumping after suspects. Good thing to leave it to the probies now."

He left it at that and waited for Vance to either dismiss him or continue his backhanded lecturing. He could easily see that the man was disappointed that his sage words weren't having much affect on him, and pursed his lips to keep from forming a smile.

"Once you leave here there's no coming back, DiNozzo." _And thank God for that,_ Tony told himself. "We've got stacks of resumes of qualified applicants waiting to get their foot in the door. Even willing to work for Gibbs if it means getting special agent status."

"I'm not surprised, Director, and that's a good thing. I wouldn't want any _un_ qualified probies looking out for my former team."

Vance ground down on on the splinter in his mouth.

"Alright then. We appreciate the time and dedication you've given us, Agent DiNozzo. I wish you luck out there, if you need a reference from me, by all means feel free to use it."

 _Well, that's mighty kind of you, Vance, offering something that should be available without asking. Literal blood, sweat and tears shed for this agency, I shouldn't have to beg for a reference from you._

"Thank you, Director. I'll certainly keep that in mind."

"Good. Back to work then, and you probably already know that Gibbs is pissed as hell at you for leaving. Try to play nice until your paperwork goes through."

"Will do, Director." Tony nodded and waited for his signal to leave, and upon getting none, turned and fled the office for what he hoped was the last time. Vance went about his work, but in his head, he couldn't help but realize that DiNozzo had never once called him 'Sir', and had to satisfy himself with the logic that the special agent was out of the habit after so many years of not being allowed to use the moniker with the high and tight Gibbs. He certainly didn't want to entertain the thought that DiNozzo just plain didn't respect him enough to give him the title.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Not beta'd. This is my first fic where Tony actually leaves the agency. And yes, he stays gone. I chose this title because this is how I have felt about watching the last many seasons of the show. We were constantly promised an all-new Tony, a Tony about to accomplish great, exciting things, and I feel continually cheated. I gave up totally on it by this season, and am actually glad that MW is leaving so we both can be put out of our misery.**_

 _ **F**_ eeling surprisingly rested after spending an evening coming to quiet terms with what he'd just done with his life, Tony wasn't surprised to find out that Gibbs had done the opposite, and in no way had come to any sort of terms regarding his Senior Field agent's resignation. He'd arrived to an empty bullpen, and found a hastily scribbled note letting him know that his boss and two team mates were 'out in the field', and his assignment was to head to the evidence garage and work with the new probies on cleaning and organizing the lockers and boxes.

Not even when _he_ was a probie had Gibbs given him such a menial chore, even as punishment. But he knew punishment when he encountered it, and this was Gibbs' way of letting him know what he thought of Tony's actions. God forbid the man would actually have the emotional maturity to actually tell Tony face to his face that he wanted to talk to him about his decision and perhaps listen to the reasons behind it. His SFA suspected that Gibbs resorted to sending himself to the basement whenever one of his ex-wives was causing him hardship, thus avoiding any confrontation that might have, in the long run, resolved some of their nagging issues.

At any rate, Tony decided to make the best of a crappy situation, something he was an expert at after his many years with Gibbs, and ordered out donuts for break and pizza for lunch. He dove in with the rest of them, enjoying the ease of working with people who not only didn't have certain mindsets against him, but were eager to learn what he knew about some of the crimes pertaining to the evidence they were handling. He was a bit surprised that Abby hadn't scouted him out and come to try to coerce and lecture him back into the fold; surely she had heard the news by now, as Gibbs had made a point of making sure the entire floor heard that his Senior Field Agent had turned tail and quit his team.

For that alone, Tony had wanted to put his fist in his boss's face, but he was intelligent enough to realize that emotions were running high on both sides of the bull pen, and it wasn't the time or place to have it out with the man. There was plenty of time, if he so chose, to discuss his reasons with Gibbs.

Part of him reasoned that the man really could care less anymore, but the grounded side of him knew that it was not just Gibbs' pride that was wounded – through thick and now a rather thin friendship, Tony understood that he had shocked the man by actually following through with what Gibbs had always threatened him with. And he knew that somewhere behind the wall that the former Marine had erected between them the past few years, was a man whose emotions ran deep, whether he chose to show them or not.

Tony really couldn't come to any one conclusion as to why Gibbs had made a determined effort to edit his SFA out of all but his work life. Granted, they had never been so inseparable as to spend every non-work hour chumming it up, but for the first few years of Tony's tenure on the team, Gibbs had made a surprising attempt to nurture more than just an employee-boss relationship. Even Ducky had called it like he saw it, likening Tony and Cate's relationship to that of siblings attempting to one-up each other for their father's approval and affections, their father being Gibbs.

After Cate's death, Tony had noticed a marked withholding of attention and gruff affection from his father-figure boss, as if the man was protecting himself from further emotional catastrophe by distancing himself from the younger man. Yet Gibbs was able to still find and openly show familial feelings for Abbey, and even the new Probie McGee. While it hurt, Tony was able to find reasons and excuses for the exclusion. After all, he was in his thirties by then, what thirty-something man needed a father following him around and reassuring him? He knew how to ride a bike and pitch a baseball, now he needed to learn to be the best special agent he could be, on whom he was relying on Gibbs to teach him.

Things had become less clear to Tony regarding his relationship with Gibbs when Ziva David had been added to the team under what Tony felt were pretty hinky circumstances. Not only was she not a citizen of the United States, but she had no formal investigative or crime scene training, and yet she was given top security clearances as a Mossad liaison of all things. Tony highly suspected that director at the time Jenny Shepard owed something big to Eli David, but he'd stayed out of it, still reeling internally from Cate's violent death and trusting in Gibbs to keep things running smoothly.

Tony could remember exactly when the wheels started to wobble off the wagon back then, and when the first strings of never before doubted trust in his boss started to fray, if not unravel. He and Ziva had been caught and locked into a shipping container, and after a day that already never seemed to end, he had been treated to a new, eye-popping view of his team mates. What he had first convinced himself was a teasing joke turned out to be a mean-spirited exclusion-fest aimed at him.

He'd come to expect petty rivalry smugness from McGee, and from Ziva he expected anything just this side of Armageddon, but having Gibbs and alas, even Ducky in on what they considered an amusin game at his expense had soured him to the core regarding the lengths his new team mate would go to to show him exactly where he stood with her. The fact that Gibbs had been not only a willing participant, but a vocal one, had snipped a cord on the rope of trust for Gibbs that until that moment he had considered unbreakable.

A few strands of that rope had been cut when Gibbs had walked out on them in search of himself via Mexico, leaving Tony holding the unasked-for reins of a team that neither respected him nor trusted him to be smart enough to lead them. But lead them, he did, with pretty damned good results, only to have Gibbs show up unexpectedly and yank the rug out from under him.

It had never been about losing the team lead, but all about the way his former boss and friend had handled his return to Lead Agent status. Not a shred of courtesy by way of a head's up discussion, or even a phone call. Even less respect was shown for Tony by haphazardly piling months of work on his old desk. So what if important papers got lost or misfiled? It wasn't Gibbs' problem, now was it?

Worse still, when Gibbs had become truly aware of what he had done and how rude and unprofessional he had behaved, there was never the kindness of an apology to his stalwart second. He'd either been too proud or too embarrassed, or perhaps both, to put together even the most rudimentary expression of regret. Tony eventually realized that he was not important enough to Gibbs for the man to break down and break one of his Almighty rules.

That hadn't been the case in the first few years of his friendship with Gibbs – there had once been a time when, if the infraction had been severe enough to warrant it, the older man found a way to make it up to his second, no matter how simple or back-handed it seemed on the surface. When Gibbs was truly in the wrong with Tony, he'd been man enough to admit it, which let Tony know just where he stood in Gibbs' esteem.

He hadn't heard anything even resembling an apology from the man for years, and there had been some hefty mia culpas on the part of the team lead regarding his SFA. Tony had stopped expecting one, just like he'd stopped expecting to be treated fairly amongst his team mates or given praise when it was due. Life went on without them; there were more important things going on in the world than whether Gibbs gave him an 'atta boy' or stopped the relentless sniping aimed at him by McGee and Ziva. Or so it seemed for quite a few years, until now.

Receiving little praise was one thing – being marginalized to the point of invisibility was quite another, especially when he contributed as much, and often more, than his fellow team mates in way of initiative and broadminded thinking. He didn't know where h would land next, but he swore that if the time came again that he was treated like the village idiot, he would leave, be it thirteen years or thirteen days. If he had anything positive to take away from Team Gibbs, it was a life-lesson of self-love. All his life he'd searched for self-worth outside of himself, and all of his life he'd found it an elusive prey. He thought he had found nirvana the first few years of studying with Gibbs, working hard to earn coveted Senior Field Agent status and seeing the pride in his boss's eyes when he'd cracked some hard nut of a case.

The way some folks had talked around the water coolers, Tony was some sort of wunderkind, the first young agent to come along to impress the difficult to please Gibbs. Even the other alphabet agencies sat up and took notice, keeping a secret eye on the kid that LJ Gibbs had dragged back from Baltimore.

Tony wasn't naïve enough to start believing his crap didn't stink, but he _was_ starting to believe that he finally had something that someone appreciated. And that it was someone who didn't accept mediocre work, meant even more to him.

He'd noticed a bit of a change in the dynamics when Cate had joined the team, but more in the sibling rivalry department than falling out of favor with Gibbs. More pronounced change came along when Tim McGee was added to the equation, and though Tony made grumbling jokes about how much better Gibbs treated his probie than him, he took it personally, resenting the fact that Gibbs left it to him to train the tenderfoot agent while treating Tim like a long, lost son.

Gibbs had moved on to greener pastures, happily reaping the benefits of McGee's mad tech skills while letting the whole world know how much he despised technology. Even better for Gibbs, McGee was Vance's pet project – the director could see a big future for the younger agent, which gave Gibbs more leverage with Vance, and he needed all he could get now that he no longer had an 'in' with the agency's big boss.

The biggest, final blow had come in the baggage of Ziva David. Tony had long since given up trying to figure out how in the world she had been allowed to take Cate's place when it was the liaison officer's own brother who had killed his partner and friend. He'd had no say in the event, and when he'd asked Gibbs point blank about what the hell was going on, the man had given him his usual 'My team' bullshit and shut him out. Tony was well used to change and upheaval, and was pretty damned good at adjusting, but that didn't mean he didn't think the whole thing stunk to high heaven.

And as off-the-wall as he behaved in the bullpen, Tony had chain of command ingrained so deeply into him that Ziva's blatant refusal to follow it here in the States had stuck in his craw like a crowbar. He'd called her on it a few times in the early days, but she had always pulled the adolescent 'I'm telling Dad' card by way of threatening to go to Gibbs with her grievance of Tony's bossy treatment. It didn't take that long before he'd just given up on it altogether, realizing that he was fighting a losing battle on all fronts when it came to Gibbs actually admonishing or, God forbid, punishing Ziva for any of her indiscretions.

She had replaced McGee in the pecking order of surrogate children, but because she was a girl and probably the age of Kelly had she lived, was able to ingratiate herself into Gibbs' pysche in no time at all. He of all people understood how it felt to be motherless and have a father who alternated between ruthless micro-managing and utter abandonment. He'd been drawn to the father-figure in Gibbs or the much the same reasons. What he had never been sure of was what her end-game was in it all. Because, as dumb as she claimed that he was, he was smart enough to know her well enough to know that Ziva David didn't make a move without plans or agenda. Just as wearing masks and playing the jokester had become ingrained in Tony at a very early age, so had manipulation and control become part of the fabric of the volatile Mossad assassin-turned-NCIS agent. Right to the very end, when she had stayed in Israel to supposedly give up her violent ways, he still hadn't quite figured out what the big picture had been regarding Jenny's plans for the young Israeli. When it came to Jenny Shepard, he didn't even want to speculate on what her motives might have been, other than the insane desire to see Rene Benoit dead as a doornail.

Which lead him down yet another rabbit hole in his infamous career at the agency – several of them, actually; Gibbs quitting and leaving him to head up a team that could barely tolerate him as their Senior Field Officer, and soon after, Director Shepard swooping in and using veiled threats to coerce Tony into whoring himself out undercover. Disaster on so many levels, that one was, and still coming back to bite him in the ass when he least expected it. In some ways, it the straw that broke his tolerance-back for what he was willing to endure for the company. Meeting Jeanne Benoit not once, but twice, had been emotionally draining and overwhelming at the same time. And probably what had hurt the most this last time was the smug and arrogant challenge written on Gibbs' face, which dared him to refuse the assignment of delivering that damned piece of metal to Jeanne and her husband. Once again he had done his job, no matter the backlash to himself, but it was going to end there.

And if any one of the team, or Abby and Ducky wanted an explanation as to his decision, they would have to come to him; he wasn't about to go to them with his reasons. At this point, he doubted any of them would be that interested in why he did _anything,_ so it wasn't weighing too heavily on his mind. McGee had, within the last couple of years, become Gibbs' right hand man, being given point on cases that rightly should have been Tony's place, and sent on assignments that Tony was more qualified to handle. Tony saw it as Gibbs' way of kicking him in the nuts in front of everyone, but as to why, Tony could never be sure until he confronted the man, and even then, he doubted he'd ever get a straight answer from the bastard. He wondered if it was worth the bother even asking.

When he got the sharp order on his phone to get his ass back up to the bullpen, Tony bid farewell to his new probie friends and headed out. A quick check of his watch told him that nearly seven hours had passed since he'd entered the evidence lockers, and the rest of his team was probably wrapping things up for the day. No doubt Gibbs would have more dirty work for him fit for a first month probie, so he girded his loins on the elevator and reminded himself that his time there was finite, so there was no need to get his undies in a bundle. As it turned out, he wasn't too far off. Gibbs had dismissed McGee and Bishop for the night and left the grunt paperwork for their SFA. Tony got on about it wordlessly, taking most of the wind out of Gibbs' sails without the expected protests and his boss not having ammunition to use against him. Two hours later, he quietly routed the files to their destinations, and powered down his computer.

"Everything's done for the night, Boss. I'm gonna head out if there's nothing more."

"Yeah. Fine. You _will_ be back in the morning, won't you?" Gibbs baited him from behind his monitor.

"Yup. Neither grunt work nor probie castigation will keep Anthony DiNozzo from his appointed job. For the duration, anyways."

Gibbs had the grace to show a mild form of chagrin, but it didn't quench his ire.

"My place. 20:00. We need to talk."

"Sure thing, Boss." Tony replied amiably. And why not, it wasn't like the man could fire him for what he would be divulging over a jam jar of bourbon. "I'll be there."

to be continued...


End file.
